All About Change - Linor Attias - An Israeli First Responder on the Front Lines of Massacre in Israel

Episode Date: October 17, 2023

Listen to this special episode of All About Change as Linor gives an intimate look at the aftermath of Hamas' attack on Israel.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome back to All About Change. This is a special episode. In wake of the recent tragedy in Israel, we wanted to turn our focus to those working hard day in and out to save lives. We've taken pains to turn this episode around more quickly than usual because of how fast things are developing on the ground. I spoke to Linor Atias, a first responder on the ground in the south of Israel. She was one of the first on the scene after the Hamas attacks on October 7th. She spoke

to me via phone from inside a triage tent. You'll be able to hear that in her background. I'm so grateful for her taking the time to speak with me and tell me about the situation on the ground. grateful for her taking the time to speak with me and tell me about the situation on the ground. A heads up to our listeners, you'll hear some graphic descriptions of the aftermath of the attack. If you're listening with children nearby, you might want to use headphones. I want to tell you that I join you in all the pain that's been inflicted on the Jewish people in the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust. I'm sure you know people that have died in this attack, as do I. My wife and child are currently in Israel. So thank you for giving us the time. I see that you're on the front lines.

You know, I know you're going through a very difficult time. So thank you for your time right now. Thank you. Thank you so much. Linoa is a member of the volunteer first responder organization, United Hatzalah. The organization's day-to-day has changed over the last week, but it was founded to ensure

rapid medical care to anyone in Israel. United Hatzalah established to save lives. Our goal, target is to be there, to be every fall within 90 seconds or less. For now, we are holding three minutes or less all over the country, and the major cities

like Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, Beersheba, we will be there in 90 seconds or less, only because we have enough volunteers. Whenever we don't have enough volunteers, we just open more training courses. It doesn't need to pay anything. We just need to be able to speak two times a week

during the evening to learn everything. And that's it. We will receive the medic bag. We will receive all the training all over the years. And, of course, the communication device. The communication device will alert if he's the nearest one. We don't have time when baby is choking. 90 seconds.

This is what we have. There are volunteers all over the country, ultra-Orthodox, Arabs, Muslims, Christians, Jews, Bedouins, women, everyone is part of the 7,000 volunteers of United Asylum. I asked Lenore about what inspired her to become a medic in the first place. Her answer had some familiar ties to what we're talking about. I lost my uncle, Emil, in a bombing attack in Jerusalem. answer had some familiar ties to what we're talking about. could be saved. And at that moment that I didn't know how I can help and assist my parents and Emil's daughter, I decided that I'm going to

dedicate my life to save others. And then I heard about United Astalla, organization of volunteers, medics, paramedics, that everyone can become a medic. And no matter what you're doing, what your professional job skills, they'll teach you everything.

They give you the equipment, the communication devices. And if something happens and you are the nearest volunteer, you will be alert and that's it. It's done. You can save someone's life because you have the equipment in your car or your motorcycle. So I decided I'm going to save lives. because you have the equipment in your car or your motorcycle. So I decided that I'm going to save lives.

That's it. She told me that as part of the training, volunteers go through something called MCI drills or mass casualty injury drills. We have the drills, MCI drills. Every branch in Israel, we're doing a bunch of MCI drills during the year. It could be missile attack, terror attack, like knife or weapon, earthquake. We are preparing the volunteers for any kind of emergency

scenarios. They know the logistic protocols, they know the medical protocols, they know the operational protocols. But no training was sufficient for what volunteer medics would encounter throughout the day of October 7th. I live in Jerusalem. 6.30, 6.40 a.m.

We had the first rocket. And I was saying to myself, they're going to say again, it's by a mistake. We wasn't mean to, it was a mistake, and that's it. But then another missile attack happened, another missile attack happened, and then I understood something was going on. So I just ran over to our dispatch center located in Jerusalem.

I asked to bring more volunteers to answer the call. Around 7.30, we received phone calls that terrorists shooting at us. Please come. Please help. Please rescue us. And it was devastating to hear those voices screaming and yelling for help and to hear the...

It wasn't like regular gun. It was rifles. This is how I heard. This is what I heard. And when I finished to establish all the distance center, I just went down to the south with all the forces that went down to the south and I assisted in helping to open the medical field to make the first triage so we can demand if someone, the helicopter or just ambulance to take them to the hospital. It was a chaos. It was a chaos.

For Lenore, that chaos brought to mind why she joined United Hatzalah in the first place. Why I become a volunteer for United Hatzalah because no one puts tourniquets on my answer. And not so many gloves. I cannot count the number of the tourniquets I put on soldiers

and civilians who got shot during the Shabbat. And I know I saved lives. So, after checking with her Jerusalem dispatch office, Linoa sped south with the siren on full blast. Within an hour, she was on site in an ambulance. The work couldn't start yet, though.

The United Hatzalah volunteers had to coordinate with the Israel Defense Force, or IDF, to figure out what was the safest way for volunteers to get to the victims. And for us to make the connection with the IDF, to understand the protective work. If we're going to kill ourselves, no one will save the others. So let's start protecting ourselves so we can be able to save someone else. So it took us like 30 minutes to manage this assessment. And then we started to started getting and get out. We saw the bodies on the main road.

I just drove like zigzag in between bodies, which I understood they already did. So can you tell us a little bit, I know it's very emotional, but can you tell us what it was like to essentially show up in a war zone? What did you see? Can you describe for our listeners who don't have a firsthand account of what you saw on the way down south? I don't have the right term, but war zone is not the right term for that. A war zone is when military fighting against another military. It was towns and cities with civilians. And they were in between missiles, terrorists, and IDF soldiers who can also make a mistake. So it wasn't a war zone, and I don't know how to call it.

I disconnect my emotions. The truth, for me to survive and to make very good decisions and the right decisions, I cannot think for my heart. I have a big, huge heart. I needed to focus on all different aspects, information, gathering, to understand which information is true, which is just only like a guess or mistake, and to create the right operational picture

so we will know how to act and how to move the person, the rescue person inside and get them out. So we can take sometimes we put seven or nine people on the ambulance. You couldn't treat them. You just put them inside and escape outside

and then you start to treat them. And one emotional thing that happened to me, in one town, it was in Be'eri town, the village of Be'eri, Kibbutz, Be'eri. We went down to take some injured civilians that were on the main road. And it was near some houses. And I heard a baby crying, but it was very low. I didn't even understand if it's a baby or maybe it's a kitty cat.

I didn't know what I'm hearing. But someone in my gut, in my heart tell me I need to check it out so I went inside the house and I saw two beautiful twins 10 months old and their parents were murdered they were over the babies

they protect the babies the mother was with one baby, the father was with the other and this is how they stayed. As a mother, I thought, I cannot just take them to the ambulance. What should I do with them on the triage, on our hospital scene? I need formula babies, I need diapers, I need to bring something with me because I don't hold it in the ambulance.

So I went to the kitchen and I saw in the refrigerator the magnet with the pictures of this beautiful family. And I started to think where the mommy will put the baby formula. And I remember I said to myself, instead of her standing in her kitchen, repairing the bottle for her baby, now no one is going to do it. Like someone will do it eventually, but this is what I told myself. And another medic, I asked him to find the diapers in the baby's room, and then they just took them to the hospital, the Barjerai hospital in Aztlón, the social workers of

the hospital received them. And Absalom, the social workers of the hospital received them, and I don't know what happened. That will be the next step for them. Another thing that was very hard for me is when I need to turn out the uniform for the soldiers, because we need to take over the

clothes to see where the bleeding is so we can stop it. And just to turn over an IDF uniform from a soldier, a fighter, it's a very hard moment for me as an Israeli, as a soldier myself. This is crucial. This is not the right way to fight. This is not the right one. It's not. I don't know how to tell you. I don't have even, in Hebrew, I don't even have the word.

For Lenore, the horror was unimaginable, something she'd only seen on a computer screen. I think they took the video games and made them alive. I know that the reality I witnessed is something that

obviously I need to take care of myself, with the Psycho-Trauma Unit of United Asala, and all the volunteers will take care by them. But to see so many blood, to see so many hundreds, at the beginning it was hundreds, right at the beginning, hundreds of people that I saw, that I count. One road, I count 35. Another road, I count 11. Another house, another field, I count 25.

It was hundreds immediately. And the fear is to understand that they are still between us, that they are hiding maybe in the cars, on the road, maybe. I have no words. In the middle of all in the cars, on the road, maybe. I have no idea. In the middle of all the devastation, surrounded by tragedy, Lenore kept going. She kept going, she told me, because of the hope of saving just one more.

Hope. This is what held me up over there. Just the hope that maybe I can save someone. Those who I couldn't save, I couldn't do nothing for them. And just, I was hoping that maybe someone survived this barbarism, this terror attack, brutal terror attack, and maybe someone can be saved. And when we found someone, it gave us the adrenaline and the power to go forward, to see more and more bodies, to smell the blood, to see the dogs hiding, terrifying, to see everything that we saw, but still looking for someone who is still alive. Under fire, under stress, under the understanding that I can be shot immediately,

that I can lose my life here. But the adrenaline, the feeling that we received in every person we grabbed out from this battlefield, this brutal battlefield, gave us the power to continue, to continue. This Saturday, October 7th, we'll never forget. We will never forget October 7th. And as you said, everyone needs to learn from this day. Everyone needs to learn how they can protect their civilians. Because the civilians of the south, of the Gaza Strip over there,

weren't protected. And I know that we took the right decision. We took our own lives at risk, but still it was the right decision. It took so many people. So we established immediately the decision, the right decision, that every ambulance should have at least one volunteer with his gun. And this is how we could make it. We didn't know how many terrorists

have been alive shooting at people. We didn't know this. But when the army understood the situation, then they started to protect us. We worked shoulder by shoulder with the army. But as time went on, more and more volunteers arrived as well. By 2 p.m., Leonor told me there were 50 ambulances, three helicopters, and 250 volunteers.

By 4 p.m., 150 more volunteers had arrived. But remember, in the days to follow, United Hatzalah is still responsible for responding to emergencies nationwide. So the mission wasn't changed since last Saturday. What happened is that we brought more volunteers from all over Israel to assist in the south, but we still need to manage all Israel across.

We have car accidents, we have shopping days all over Israel every day. Every day we receive 2,000 calls, emergency calls. 2,000 calls in Israel for ambulances we receive every day. And now we need to do more service for

the south. So we just bring the vehicle of the command center, the mobile dispatch center, which establish a unique way to the situation in the South. And in Jerusalem, they manage all over the country. Well, God

willing, there will be peace soon, and this will come to an end. You talked about PTSD. How are your volunteers going to deal with what they've seen? Thank you for asking about us. We have the psychotrauma unit. The psychotrauma unit opens the hotline for the volunteers immediately

when Shabbat went through during the night. And since then, they are around the clock. Every shift that are opening, they have the circle that explains the operation outside. But someone from the psychotrauma unit explains to them what different things they're going to see. Maybe they will see dead bodies. Maybe they will see terror attacks. Maybe they will see a soldier that just physically is okay, but mentally collapsed.

And they're preparing us for all different things that we might see and feel. And after the shift, they have the circles over here. There's someone that they can just speak. We can say whatever we want to say.

We can sing. They bring to say. We can sing. They bring the piano over during the night. And of course, the hotline is still active. If you need a private call with someone from the psychotrauma unit, this is active 24-7. And if you need face-to-face, they will meet you.

Wherever your home is, they will come to your home or coffee shop or whatever. They will sit with you. And it's very important for us to mentalize everything, to understand what we've been seeing and feeling, and to bring the volunteers back normal to their own life, to the family, community, job. We need to bring them safe, not only in their bodies, but also in their mind and soul.

Unfortunately, psychological safety isn't the volunteers' only concern. We have already five volunteers who were murdered in this terrorist attack. Two of them were at the festival. One of them was in Sderot trying to assist the police station. And he got shot at. We have wounded volunteers and we have missing volunteers who maybe right now they are captured in data, but we don't have the information yet.

I'm so sorry for that. Well, first of all, thank you so much for your service and for everyone else who is volunteering for United Hatzalah. Can you tell us how our listeners can get involved, how they can help, how they can support you and your colleagues who are out there on the front lines trying to you know save civilians and and individuals who've been maimed and and and seriously hurt from terrorist attacks there are mainly two ways to support us right now which are crucial for us. One is to donate.

Whatever you can donate at United Asala website campaigns, please do. Please help us. Because we need more to benefit, more bandages, more oxygen tanks, and it's crucial for us to have more gear vests and helmets, because

right now, we don't have enough. And if someone will start it in the north, and we are talking about the long run, then we need more, and we already have the suppliers that we can purchase from. The second thing that we can help us is just to be the ambassador, to tell the story of United Astalla, about those home responders who know how to save someone's life. We've met so many

during this week. And just to support us, to tell about us to others. This is the two ways that I think we can help United Atala right now. My heart goes out to you that you're still there, that the volunteers of United Atala

are still there helping people and knowing that your work will continue in the coming days and weeks. And all I can say is God bless you and thank you. And I urge all our listeners, anyone that wants to help people in Israel that have been the victims of the worst terrorist attacks since the Holocaust, to reach out to the website of Yonaira Tzala and give what you can to help this amazing organization. Linoa, thank you so much for joining us. I appreciate you taking the time out of an emergency situation to talk to us and to let our listeners know what's happening on the ground. talk to us and to let our listeners know what's happening on the ground. So thank you so much.

Thank you, Dave. Thank you so much. I wish you all the best going forward. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Bye-bye. Thank you for joining us again on All About Change for this difficult episode. We'll be back on our regular schedule with our next episode.